Hasta La Ideas

This is the fifth installment of our Core77 Questionnaire. We’ll be posting a new interview every other Tuesday.

Name: Paul Cocksedge

Occupation: Designer

Location: East London

Current projects: It’s very varied. We’re doing furniture and sculptural lamps and a very interesting architectural project in London. We’re doing bicycle accessories and a mass-produced, self-initiated electronics project. We have an exhibition opening at Friedman Benda in New York in September. So the scales vary a lot, and the projects vary a lot as well.

Mission: I think it’s what all designers want to do, really. Designers want to work on original projects that move us forward a little bit, that make people see the world in different ways, and that bring some joy and wonder and enlightenment somehow. That’s what I do.

During last year’s London Design Festival, Cocksedge created Auditorium, a temporary installation hand-woven from nylon wire. Photos by Mark Cocksedge.

When did you decide that you wanted to be a designer? I was about 17 or 18. It was when I realized that I couldn’t become an airline pilot—because I realized that I was actually scared of flying. Honestly. I had studied mathematics and physics; I was prepping for that world. And then I started bringing the arts into my world, and it slowly became design.

Education: I went to university and studied industrial design innovation. And then I went to the Royal College of Art, and it was almost about unlearning all of that and figuring out your own process. The Royal College was a beautiful moment in my career. It was under Ron Arad and these fantastic tutors, really beautiful minds and free thinkers. It changed my life.

First design job: I’ve never had a design job apart from the one that I created for myself.

Who is your design hero? You know, it’s interesting. You see work by designers, and that’s one side of the story. But then when you meet that person, that’s the other side of the story. For me, I need to like the work and like the person, because the work that I really admire comes from within people’s souls. They’re not designing because they’re told they have to design something; they’re designing because they have this burning desire to create something, and that comes from a completely different place than the everyday-job idea of being a designer. So people like Ron Arad, Ingo Maurer—these kinds of people guide me.

Above: Cocksedge in his London studio. Below: Change the Record, a smartphone loudspeaker made from recycled vinyl LPs.

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